1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to management of computerized devices, and more particularly, to a system and method for surely but conveniently causing reset of a computerized device.
2. Description of Related Art
Corporations (e.g., device owners) typically provide their employees (e.g., device users) with computerized devices, such as mobile communications devices, for their use. Devices may contain sensitive corporate information and may be able to access sensitive corporate information. In order to maintain a certain level of security for such information, the device owner may require that certain application computer programs be present on a user's device. Periodically, these applications must be replaced with more recent versions of the applications. In many cases, the application upgrade happens automatically, without the user knowing about it. Once an application has been upgraded to a new version, the device may need to be reset in order to ensure that the most recent version of the application program is presently being executed.
Users are typically also able to install third party applications onto the devices. These third party applications may or may not be approved of by the device owner. As such, applications running on the device typically are granted or denied certain privileges in order to control access to sensitive information. Periodically, the device owner may update the privileges on the device, e.g., by revoking existing privileges or granting new privileges for one or more applications. This also typically occurs automatically without the user knowing about it. However, for the new privileges to take effect, the device's computer system may need to be reset.
The situation may also be complicated if the user has not initiated the action which prompts the reset. In the case of downloading an application via the browser that requires a reset, the user initiated the action of the download and thus would not be surprised that a reset is required for the application to run. The situation primarily addressed here is one in which the user does not initiate the action that requires the reset. How can the required reset be completed surely but conveniently—e.g., without having the user lose his/her work (i.e., a message being composed) or think that the device is faulty (avoiding service calls) when the user did not initiate the action that prompted the reset?
In known systems, as illustrated in FIG. 3, when a device reset is required, the user is notified of the need for reset and is given an opportunity to reset the device immediately, or to do so later. A user may choose to reset his/her device when notified, or later if he/she has data to be saved prior to resetting the device. For example, the user may have been composing a message for transmission to a message recipient, or may have been taking part in a voice call with another party.
If the user chooses to reset the device later, he/she may either forget to reset the device or may choose not to, thereby allowing a potentially unsafe application or privilege to exist on the device and allowing an attacker to take advantage of the situation.
A further possible problem is that if the device reset operation was not initiated by the user, he/she may later assume that the device is not operating correctly, and may then contact the device owner unnecessarily.
In some known approaches, when new applications are installed the user is given the choice to reset now or later, only once. The reset is never forced, but if the user wants to run the new application correctly he/she is required to reset on his/her own time. However, this is not always sufficient because in many cases, reset is required to bring the device to a secure mode, meeting corporate specifications. In effect, such prior art reset is only a result of device user action and not device owner action.